Buffalo Traffic Jam bring the "Pictures of You" tour to the Val Air on Feb. 17

The Bozeman folk duo behind "Fool's Gold" play the 1939 West Des Moines ballroom on a Wednesday in February, with Jack Van Cleaf opening.

A song that's been streamed more than 95 million times is a strange thing to hear in a ballroom that opened when people still danced to Ted Lewis. On Wednesday, Feb. 17, 2027, Des Moines gets to hear exactly that. Buffalo Traffic Jam play the Val Air Ballroom, with Jack Van Cleaf opening. The date was announced Oct. 19.

Doors open at 7 p.m. and the show starts at 8. Tickets are through AXS, which lists the show as all ages, at 301 Ashworth Road in West Des Moines. The AXS onsale opened Oct. 22, so tickets are on sale now. The Val Air holds about 2,556.

If the name is new to you, the song probably isn't. Buffalo Traffic Jam is Frankie Cassidy and Nathan Ross, a folk and Americana duo who met at Montana State and are based in Bozeman. Their single "Fool's Gold" has passed 95 million streams, according to Grateful Web and BroadwayWorld. In July they released their first full-length album, *Pictures of You*: 14 songs about getting older, pulled between nostalgia and hope for what comes next. This tour is named for it, per Country Central.

Van Cleaf is on the same stretch of the run. AXS has him at The Astro in La Vista, Neb., the night before and at The Sylvee in Madison four nights later, so Iowa is the middle of a Midwest week.

The room is worth the trip on its own. The Val Air opened on June 6, 1939. Builder and operator Tom Archer drew an estimated 2,500 people on the first night, with Ted Lewis and his dance band, according to Notes on Iowa. The name came from a contest with more than 2,000 entries: "Val" for Valley Junction, "Air" for the open-air ballroom it was at first. It was enclosed in the 1950s. In 2022 the building was added to the National Register of Historic Places, and local promoter Sam Summers bought and renovated it, as dsm Magazine and Business Record reported.

That makes for a nice fit. *Pictures of You* is a record about looking back without getting stuck there, and the Val Air is a building that's done the same thing for 87 years. The dance floor that held Ted Lewis's crowd in 1939 will hold a crowd singing along to a song they found on their phones.

A 95-million-stream song in a ballroom that opened for Ted Lewis.

It's a weeknight, so plan the drive out Ashworth Road, get there for Van Cleaf, and expect most of the room to know every word of "Fool's Gold." Tickets are at AXS.

Sources: AXS — Buffalo Traffic Jam at Val Air Ballroom (axs.com); AXS — Jack Van Cleaf tickets (axs.com); Country Central — Buffalo Traffic Jam shares new 2027 tour dates (countrycentral.com); Grateful Web — Buffalo Traffic Jam releases debut album Pictures of You (gratefulweb.com); BroadwayWorld — Pictures of You: Buffalo Traffic Jam's debut album out now (broadwayworld.com); Notes on Iowa — Val Air Ballroom, June 6, 1939 (notesoniowa.com); dsm Magazine — A New Val Era (dsmmagazine.com); Business Record — Local music promoter buys Val Air Ballroom (businessrecord.com)